


prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry

by nex_et_nox



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, The Speed Force likes Cisco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6887320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nex_et_nox/pseuds/nex_et_nox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hello, Vibe," Reverb says to him, smiling. "We've been waiting for you."</p>
<p>[The Speed Force doesn't speak only to Barry.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry

"Barry!" Cisco yells into the seething, whirling mass all around them, one last desperate cry. Unreal thunder echoes on the edge of hearing; the ground wavers beneath him, eerily dreamlike even when some part of him should be able to feel the real world beyond his vibe. 

Barry looks straight at him, eyes considering his outstretched hand, and then he turns away. He walks further into the speed force and there is nothing Cisco can do to stop him.

"No," Cisco says soundlessly, his hand dropping, and he almost falls out of the vibe, except there is suddenly someone else in front of him.

Reverb.

"Hello, Vibe," Reverb says to him, smiling. "We've been waiting for you."

Cisco recoils, wanting to drop out of the vibe, but without warning he’s stuck. Something takes over the vibe, its influence so strong he can almost feel the pressure of its hold binding him to this immaterial plane. He can't leave. He can’t drop out of the vibe.

"You're dead," Cisco says, nearly trembling as he backs away from his living nightmare, like retreating will do him any good, and, "Let me _go_."

"We are not him," Reverb says calmly. "And you are not leaving until we have talked with you. Barry won't leave here either. Not until he has accomplished what he needs to."

"You're holding Barry here," Cisco says, his voice small and sick. "Who _are_ you?"

Not-Reverb spreads his hands, expansive, taking in the vortex around them. "Who do you think we are, Vibe?" he asks. His eyes are dark and inhuman, reflecting the flashes of lightning all around them, and in that moment Cisco understands.

"You're the speed force," Cisco says, awed and terror-stricken all at once. This is a concept embodied in front of him, something so vast and powerful it makes Cisco's mind hurt trying to comprehend it, and it's talking to him with his own face.

The speed force looks amused, Reverb's face making the expression strange, almost cruel or almost kind – impartial only for how otherworldly it is. "Yes," he says. The vortex around them fades, replaced by the basement of STAR Labs, and Cisco shivers at it, nearly able to see the echo of Thawne circling him. He doesn't often come down here anymore.

"Why won't you let Barry come back?" Cisco asks. His heart is in his throat; he wants to rage at the speed force for taking Barry away from them, but the speed force had implied Barry could leave. He doesn’t want to anger something that could take Barry away from them all forever.

"He has something he needs to do," not-Reverb says, implacable. "If he left with you then, we could not let him take his speed with him as he did. Yet it is fortunate you came. We need to speak with you as well…Vibe."

The way he says Cisco's name is deliberate, thoughtful, like he's weighing the taste of it on his tongue and measuring the different flavors of it. Cisco doesn't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

"You are afraid of us," not-Reverb says. "This body that we wear, the powers he had at his disposal. Why?"

"Because he was a monster," Cisco says. Nothing less than honesty will help him here, he knows this instinctively. "He had all those powers, more powers than me, and he used them selfishly, to _hurt_ people. Like Thawne did. Like Zoom is still doing, because you're _letting_ him!"

Anger at the speed force bleeds out of him. He doesn't mean to let it, but circling around his reasons for fearing his own powers always comes back to Thawne – all that he did, all that he took. Cisco wishes he could take back the words that spilled out of him.

Not-Reverb smiles. "We choose each person we gift our power to," he says. "Whether they use it for good or for ill – that is up to them. Humans," he says, and he tangles the word in meanings as he says it, like it's something wonderful and incomprehensible, or maybe like a parent indulging the small actions of children. "Humans make their own choices. Yet we will admit...we have favorites." His head tilts to the side, a fall of black hair, a quirk of lips as he meets Cisco's eyes.

A chill crawls its way up Cisco's spine. "Do you favor Zoom?" he gets out.

Not-Reverb hums. "We don't," he says. "We find him distasteful. He is not of our Earth. He disrupts us. It is – disconcerting."

Cisco blows out a shaky breath.

"Do you not want to ask us who we _do_ favor, Vibe?" not-Reverb asks, pacing away toward the center of the room, drawing ever closer to the containment system they had tried to use to hold the Reverse Flash. He has had a gentle amusement on his face through most of the conversation, like he's taking enjoyment out of his talk with Cisco, but this is more than that. This is bright, nearly mirthful.

"Barry," Cisco says, half guess and half knowledge.

"Yes," the speed force laughs. "And no. We do favor him. But we must say that we also favor _you_ , Vibe, as elsewhere another part of ourself favored Reverb."

Cisco is – shocked. Horrified, if he is honest with himself. He doesn't want the attention of something as immense and unfathomable as the speed force. He barely functions sometimes under the weight of the expectations of his friends; how could he live up to the expectations of the _speed force_?

"You are important to us," not-Reverb says, prowling close to Cisco again. He taps his hand right above Cisco's heart, making Cisco flinch – _in many ways, you have shown me what it is like to have a son_ – and asks, "Did you ever wonder why the first moment the Flash used us to travel in time was when you had died, child? You are important. You are a _constant_. Your work here was not yet done. It still is not."

"Oh my god," Cisco says, and he's backing away. He's shaking. He doesn't know what to do with this.

"You will understand," the speed force says to him, gently. "In time. In the meanwhile...we will tell you a secret we never allowed Reverb to know."

The speed force beckons Cisco forward.

Despite himself, Cisco goes.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the Speed Force tells Cisco how to cut Zoom off from it. It isn't above picking favorites and helping them out when they come so willingly into its domain...
> 
> This is complete for now, though after the season ends that might change. I just...really want the show writers to let Cisco use his powers to help take down Zoom, but I doubt it will happen. Also, this beautiful angel deserves therapy from the Speed Force just as much as Barry does.


End file.
